New Aerosol Ammunition To Protect Russian Battle Tanks From US Javelin Missiles

Submitted by South Front,

The Russian army has adopted a new aerosol ammunition designed to protect armored vehicles from high-precision weapons.

The 3VD35 protective aerosol ammunition was developed by the Central Scientific Research Institute of Precision Engineering (TsNIITochmash), which is part of Rostec. Its caliber is 76 mm, with length of 290 mm and weight of 1.8 kg. Temperature range of the ammunition is from -50ºC to +50ºC.

The main purpose of the new device is to protect Russian armored vehicles from strikes into the most vulnerable upper hemisphere, which has a smaller armor thickness and is generally not covered by dynamic or anti-cumulative protection. When a threat arises, the 3VD35 protective ammunition is fired in the direction of the enemy’s attack and creates an aerosol screen that “fools” the enemy’s precision-guided munitions guidance systems.

In a way, it makes the armored vehicle (a battle tank, for example) invisible to the guided projectile, knocks it off the target due to the presence of light and heat-reflecting particles.

The product is designed to protect equipment from high-precision weapons with laser, optical and thermal guidance systems. It “covers” the equipment both from high-precision aircraft weapons, barrage ammunition, and from third-generation anti-tank missile systems.

When such protective ammunition is installed on a battle tank or other armored vehicle, the developers claim that it would become essentially invulnerable to high-precision and very expensive homing missiles, such as the US Javelin and AGM-114 Hellfire.

Apparently, there is also interest from foreign buyers, so it could either be directly exported, or an export variant could be presented soon.

The importance of the armored vehicles’ protection rises with the creation of new types of various guided missiles. Recently, the Chinese edition Sohu published photographs of Chinese soldiers with a new anti-tank guided missile launcher. It is believed that the ATGM in the photographs belongs to the third generation. The new weapon can attack armored vehicles in their upper hemisphere making it incredibly dangerous.

If China is developing such a weapon, there is cause to consider that some of Russia’s competitors are also doing the same.

In the past, the United States expressed doubts about the ability of Russian tanks to withstand the FGM-148 Javelin ATGM. The National Interest claimed in a report that the protection systems of the Russian T-72B3, T-80BVM, T-90M and T-14 battle tanks are insufficient to protect against the FGM-148 ATGM.

The United Kingdom is also concerned with the matter, as it is developing a full-fledged active defense system for armored vehicles.